CLEVELAND — The Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks with more punch than they were capable of as a No. 6 seed. They defeated the Philadelphia 76ers and finished the regular season just two games behind the No. 10 seed in the East, despite upsetting the No. 2 Boston Celtics in the first round.
And now they’re taking a commanding 3-0 lead against the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals, a team few expected to make it all the way to the third round.
Barring the greatest collapse of all time, no team in NBA playoff history has ever broken a 3-0 series lead. The New York Knicks are headed to the NBA Finals.
And aside from an early 2-1 loss in Game 1 against Atlanta, there were few bumps in the road to the biggest stage the franchise has seen in a quarter century.
The Hawks lacked depth at center outside of Onyeka Okongwu and relied heavily on 36-year-old CJ McCollum and first-time All-Star Jalen Johnson. The Sixers acquired Joel Embiid from the Knicks following appendix surgery.
Right now, the Knicks are dominating a Cavaliers team, and it looks like they’re completely dominating them at the moment.
Maybe the Knicks are just that good.
Maybe they actually have the billing to become a buzzsaw after assembling one of the richest and most expensive rosters in basketball. Maybe they’re so dominant that no opponent seems worthy of sharing the floor in a championship discussion.
Or maybe — just maybe — the road to the NBA Finals is as clear as any we’ve seen in years. Perhaps the Knicks are making it look easy, but that’s actually because this is one of the easiest paths to the biggest stage in a long time.
Of course, the Knicks can only play with the players in front of them.
They chose not to play a Cleveland team that was coming off a seven-game series against the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons, and then took a day off to play a Knicks team that had a dominant victory over Philadelphia and had nine days off.
They opted not to rest the entire rotation in Atlanta’s final regular-season game against the Miami Heat, effectively giving the Knicks a first-round matchup with the Hawks instead of Toronto.
And they didn’t choose to let the Cavs lie down in Game 3. The Cavs did it themselves, because that’s who they are.
They don’t have the DNA of a team that can come back from 0 wins and 3 losses. They have the genetic make-up of a team that gets swept off the floor of their own home.
In many ways, this outcome felt inevitable.
Cavs owner Dan Gilbert tried to borrow from Philadelphia’s blueprint by limiting ticket sales to Ohio residents through location restrictions, just as the Sixers tried in the second round.
Failed.
Knicks fans flooded Rocket Arena anyway. The arena’s sound system, much like the one at Philadelphia’s Xfinity Mobile Arena, desperately tried to drown out the chants of “Let’s go Knicks!” throughout the night. With two minutes left in the fourth inning and the home crowd headed for the exits with a 16-point lead, Knicks fans could be heard waving goodbye before echoing through the enemy field.
And just like in the Philadelphia series, Cleveland missed its biggest chance to steal momentum. In Game 1, the Cavs built a 22-point lead against a rusty Knicks team before collapsing in a crushing 44-11 loss in New York.
Since then, I feel like this series is over. Only one question remains now.
How much of an embarrassment will the Knicks cause to Cleveland when they get the job done on Monday night?
The Knicks shut out Atlanta in Game 6 of the first round with an unprecedented 51-point victory. They ended the Sixers’ season with a humiliating 30-point loss in Philadelphia, winning it all.
Now they’re doing the same thing against Cleveland.
The Knicks have become the bully of the Eastern Conference. And it appears the only team of their size waiting on the other side is the team that survived the Western Conference Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.
The real battle begins from there. Because eventually the Knicks will have to stop picking teams below them and trade punches with legitimate heavyweights.
Until then? They keep stuffing their opponents in lockers and throwing out the keys.
And the Cavaliers, like the Hawks and Sixers before them, have already stopped fighting back, and the final game is just a formality for the third team the Knicks will send to Cancun this season.
Meanwhile, chants of MVP poured onto the court when Jalen Brunson fouled into the lineup at 12 with 40 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Brunson scored a game-high 30 points, and all five starters led the game with double-digit points. The Knicks also had Landry Shamet score 14 points off the bench, including a buzzer-beating corner 3 right in front of Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson.
Atkinson threw a mild tantrum and sat down in his chair, giving his coach a look of defeat knowing what was going to happen next.
According to history, the New York Knicks will advance to the NBA Finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers say the same thing without saying it.
#Knicks #powerhouse #East #theyll #pick #team #size